Monkey see, monkey do
by renrenren3
Summary: Castle's problem is that he doesn't know when to stop. Beckett's problem is that she's getting used to it.


The problem in dealing with Castle is that he doesn't know when to stop. He's larger than life, that's what drew Beckett to him in the first place, but that's also why he's bored by everyday things, he wants everything in his life to be extraordinary and amazing. Everything has to be larger than life for him. Learning about a new James Bond movie in the making is fantastic. The new chicken wrap from the corner deli is awesome. A coffee stain on his tie is a catastrophe. And so on and so on.

Beckett is much more prosaic. She had to make way for herself in a department still mostly dominated by men, in an area where nobody ever gave her anything for free. All that she got, she earned with days, months, years of hard work. She's not prone to flights of fancy.

She tried to get used to Castle's presence. It wasn't easy at first: the writer is her polar opposite, he lives in a world of rich and privileged men who own a Ferrari and like to dabble in murder investigations in their spare time... or at least that was her initial impression. With time she has learned to appreciate Castle's seemingly random observations and his occasional flashes of genius. Castle is a disaster with routine cases, the ones where you have to canvas an entire neighborhood or sift through hundreds and hundreds of pages of police reports to get to the solution... but when it comes to the exceptional cases, listenning to him often gives interesting results.

That's why Beckett doesn't start ranting and raving when Castle brings a monkey into the police station. She looks at the animal, cradled against Castle's chest like the world's ugliest baby, checks that the monkey hasn't pooped on her chair, and then and sits down at her desk.

"Castle, I'm not sure if I should call animal control for the monkey or just find an asylum for you," she says.

"Hello to you too, Detective Beckett," Castle says, ignoring her jibe. He gives her a smile that seems taken straight off the backcover photo on one of his bestsellers and, even though she's already acknoledged its presence and there was no way that she could miss it, he motiones towards the monkey with a rather unnecessary flourish. "I found the key witness for your case!"

"A monkey," Beckett repeats, just to be sure. "A monkey is my key witness." First the dog, then this... Beckett is not at all pleased with Castle's attempt to turn the police station into a zoo, and Iron Gates will be even less happy when she finds out. Which is going to be soon, because the damn monkey is attracting a lot of attention already.

"Correction," says Castle. "_The_ monkey." He says it with a marked emphasis on the definite article, Beckett can almost see the italics that Castle would have used if he was writing this piece of dialogue in one of his novels. "The victim's monkey, his pet. You see, we thought he had a cat, but the pet food we found was completely wrong for a cat. So I did some research and found this little guy in the park near his house."

Beckett is not at all convinced that this is a pet, not judging by the way he's struggling and trying to get away from Castle's grip. From the scratches on Castle's arms, if he hasn't succeeded it's lot from lack of trying. "Well, good job," Beckett says, dry. "I'll call animal control, they'll be happy to take charge of him and find him a new home."

From the disappointment on Castle's face, Beckett can guess that he was already planning to adopt the monkey. "You can't send him away, I told you, he's our only witness," he says. "He's a very important eyewitness to the crime, he can identify the murderer!"

"He can't to that, not until we have a suspect in custody," Beckett replies. Then she realizes that she's not outright opposing Castle's idea, which is as good as supporting it, and this is never a good idea. "But it would be useless anyway, no jury would accept the testimony of a monkey."

The animal shows Beckett his teeth and clings to Castle's neck. Beckett doesn't know whether he understood the meaning of her words or whether he just felt the hostility in her voice, she's not interested in the details of monkey psychology.

"Call animal control," Beckett repeats.

"But he is our key witness!" Castle insists.

The other detectives are pretending to mind their own business, while they exchange notes under the table and bet on who will win the argument this time. Beckett remembers a time when she had a normal job surrounded by ordinary people who brought in normal witnesses for questioning. The problem is that now that world seems somewhat dull to her too.


End file.
